Everyday Miracles

Look at these miracles. These babies are all miracles! About 5 years ago I joined a group on Babycenter that was part of the LDS Families Board for women struggling with infertility. We started out as the "Infertile Mertyles" Then somewhere along the line we were shortened to "The Infert's group." I had a hard time accepting and talking about my infertility at first and these girls were great. They knew what I was going through and they were so supportive.

Over the years people have come and gone from the group but one thing has remained, the feeling of support and friendship.

On Wednesday I was able to go to lunch with 4 other "Infert" girls. We all have different stories but they are really not that different. We all have wanted to have babies and for one reason or another we have not been able to. Now through one resource or another, we have all been blessed with at least one sweet miracle.

I am so thankful for the love and support all the "infert" girls have given me and the others. It has made the road a little easier to travel and it's nice to know there is someone there who knows what you are going through and you know they genuinely care about you.

Mommy

I am sorry it has been so long since I have posted on this blog. Our lives have been very up in the air and I have been putting so many things on the back burner. This blog too unfortunately.

Last night I had a realization that I had to share here.

Every once in a while something clicks for me. Last night I realized how much I LOVE the word Mommy. For so many years I wanted to hear that simple word, wondered if I ever would. Even whined, cried, screamed it is music to my ears. Okay, maybe not music, but I love hearing him say that sweet word. Last night we had a rough night. Roman wanted to sleep right up against my back, if I moved I heard a sweet "mommy." How can I be mad when he says that?

I never want to take that word for granted. I waited 6 1/2 years to be called Mommy, a nd thankfully I have been given the opportunity to have this sweet angel boy in my life.

I Would Die for That

I was looking at another blog on adoption this morning and I saw this video. It was very moving. I watched it and thought "I can't go without sharing this." So here it is.

I Would Die for That

by Kelly Coffee

Waiting Continued

After the trip to Texas I wanted to get things going full swing again. We came home, I called the caseworker and told her we wanted our profile reactived and I wanted to get things going. The best thing that came from the failed adoption is it gave us the opportunity to start talking to people about our plans to adopt. It really gave us the chance to open up.

It took over a month for our profile to be reactivated, and I was so discouraged to learn that our profile had lost "seniority." Basically what happens is this, a birthmother will say what she is looking for, the caseworker will go through their "book" of profiles and find the first 10 that match her criteria, give those to her, then if she doesn't find a match in those 10 they will give 10 more. We went all the way to the back of the book again, and on the website we were clear at the bottom.

I wasn't even sure I wanted to adopt still to be completely honest. I knew that my body probably couldn't support a healthy pregnancy, but I wanted to be a mother SO badly, and I didn't know if I could take the heartache of another failed adoption. So I went back to my doctor and started fertility treatments again. We did this for 8 months, nothing. Finally we were back to the point that our last option was Invetro again and decided that we would wait until after Spencer changed jobs in May because his new job would cover fertility treatments, and we were draining our adoption funds trying something that obviously wasn't working.

By January I just couldn't take the waiting with no results any longer and I started calling adoption agencies to see what other agencies there were that were under $15,000. I found 3 and had them all send me their initial paperwork and what we would need to do to activate our profile with them as well. In just over a month I had filled out paperwork for all 3 agencies and was ready to send. Then, out of the blue, I had a birthmother that e-mailed me, she had seen that we were trying to adopt, and she wanted to see our profile. I didn't know what it was, but I decided to hold off on sending out the applications.

Our Infertility

As we were first married we set out our timeline for our family. We planned to stay in our apartment about 2 years, move into a house, start a family. I would be done with school by then and Spencer would have his associates and would be going to the University of Utah for Pre-Law. My how things change. After living in the apartment all of about 3 months I was done with apartment life and we started house hunting. On our limited income I am surprised that we even qualified for a loan, but we did and we found the perfect starter home, great central location. We closed on the house on Spencer's 22nd birthday and moved in three days later.

We were still planning to wait the two years to start our family but that September we got a huge surprise when I found out I was pregnant. Because it was my first pregnancy the doctors office said that they usually would see you for the first visit around 10 weeks. Everything was fine, we had gotten over the initial shock and were actually starting to get excited.

I went in for my appointment and found out that I wasn't 10 weeks like we thought, but more like 15 weeks but the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. She said nothing to worry about, I had a retroverted uterus (tilted back) so she said sometimes it was just hard to find so she sent me for an ultrasound. I had never had an ultrasound before (obviously) so I didn't think anything of it when the ultrasound technician didn't say anything and after she was done said "I'll be back in a few minutes with your doctor." The doctor came in and explained that there was no heartbeat and she thought it would be best if we went ahead and did a D&C. So I went in the next morning completely numb and that was it, I was no longer pregnant. I had the greatest anesthesiologist who said "I have an epidural here with your name on it, I expect to see you here sometime next year to use it." It was the hope that I needed on a completely hopeless day.

We decided that we didn't want to wait another year to try again and after 6 months of trying on our own went back to my doctor. I had known for a few years that it might be difficult for me to get pregnant, When I was 19 I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Overy Syndrome), but my doctor said that it would be no problem, when the time came if we needed help she was more than happy to help. Because I was only ovulating a few times a year she decided to use hormone drugs to try to create a more normal cycle. So I started taking Provera and Clomid, after 4 months with no success we moved to injectable drugs, still nothing and we had exhausted our savings and had to stop. I guess we were just trying things the wrong way as soon as we stopped trying, I was pregnant again. My doctor was great and had us come in weekly for ultrasounds to check growth. The first ultrasound was at 4 weeks, really nothing to see a sac and fetal pole. 5 weeks we could see a little bean, 6 weeks a heartbeat! The chances of miscarrying after seeing a heartbeat drop to only about 10%. Unfortunately I was in that 10% again. The next week there was no heartbeat and only a few days growth where there should have been a week.

I felt like the world came crashing down, but no one was stopping. Life had to go on, but I didn't want it to. My doctor offered to refer me to a specialist to see if we could find a reason for the miscarriages, they had done genetic testing and both pregnancies had come back normal. We went to see a high risk specialist who wanted to do additional testing to try to figure out why this was happening. First he did blood work. Who knew you could give so much blood! They tested for infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, thyroid problems, alloimune disorders. They needed to test Spencer as well. Everything came back fine.

The last test he wanted to run was to inject a dye into my uterus and do what is called a hystosonogram to check to make sure there weren't any abnormalities or blocked tubes. As soon as the dye entered my uterus the doctor turned the screen to show it to me he said "look at this" and pointed to a few things. I really didn't understand what I was looking at. After we were done he took me into an other room to show me my x-rays next to a normal uterus x-ray. I finally had a diagnosis, T-shaped Uterus. There had been recent research showing that there were women with t-shaped uterus' carrying to term but we had another problem we would need to know as soon as I had ovulated to start medicines to try to maintain the pregnancy. For most patients this meant they would test 3 days after ovulation to see if you had ovulated then start the prescriptions until you test; if negative stop and try another month. For me this meant that we would need to start fertility treatments again because I didn't have a consistent cycle. This doctor didn't do fertility treatments so he referred me to another doctor (a Reproductive Endocrinologist) and as soon as I was pregnant I would return to his care.

So we started on the roller coaster called fertility treatments again. After almost another year the Reproductive Endocrinologist said that we had exhausted all options except Invetro Fertilization.

I was emotionally and mentally exhausted. I couldn't keep doing this to myself, but more than anything I wanted to be a mother. We didn't have the money to proceed with Invetro, and I was so discouraged by everything. We needed to make some decisions on what we were going to do. We prayed a lot, cried a lot, and finally I got up the courage to call LDS Family Services to find out what we would need to do to begin the adoption process.

Another Blog

For a while I have felt the need to write about my life, especially the infertility that I have dealt with and finally our adoption. I decided it wasn't apropriate to put on Roman's blog because that is meant to be all about him. So I have started this to share my story. I hope that I can maybe inspire one person by it. It has been a long hard road that I thought was broken, but I realized that Heavenly Father had a plan for us. This was the road that we would need to take to lead us to our sweet son. The song Bless the Broken Road by Rascall Flatts has taken on a new meaning for me.

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream lead me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you